Rapper/Producer MARK VESUVIO was born and raised in New York. He fell in love with Hip-Hop listening to DJ Red Alert live mixshows. Buying every Rap record/tape/CD he could find, Mark absorbed the styles of the day. Eager to develop his own, he started rapping in 1987. After cutting his first demo as a senior in high school, he realized he had found his calling. Five years later, Vesuvio graduated from Haverford College outside Philly with a degree in History. He immediately got a job making sandwiches at The Silver Slicer, a local deli, and started producing beats to rhyme over. After teaming up with roommate Zinndeadly and cutting demo after demo, Mark met Bay Area emcee Able, who responded to a DJ-for-hire flier Mark had posted on his college campus. The three of them formed The Anonymous. After relocating to Venice Beach, Los Angeles, The Anonymous released four albums: Swells of Abstract (1995), Weep No More (1996), Green and Gold (1998), and Dedicated (1999). With their ground-breaking production styles, lyrical dexterity, and passionate performances, they established themselves as a force in the underground Hip-Hop scene. In 1998, Vesuvio earned his first Top 10 hit with "Green and Gold" featuring Eminem, which spent 15 weeks on the charts and earned a four-star review in Rolling Stone.
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A published author, photographer, rapper and producer, Manifest has rocked shows with Black Eyed Peas, Dilated Peoples, KRS-ONE, Faith Evans, Rock Steady Crew, and Biz Markie while touring the US with The Anonymous and their four turntable live show backed by DJ Drez and DJ Mark Luv. This exposure opened him up to an international fanbase and earned him the respect of his peers, leading to collaborations with Cut Chemist, Eminem, Dilated Peoples, Mystic, Living Legends, Ruff Ryders, Wu-Tang's LA The Darkman, Medusa, Awol One, and Northern State. Three years in Los Angeles took him from complete unknown to "one of the West Coast’s finest representatives" (XXL Magazine).
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Still, he felt the pull to return home and moved back to Brooklyn, NYC in 2001. But first, he embarked on a solo tour of his motherland, Italy, where he performed live and collaborated with Italian artists Turi, Esa, Gente Guasta, Fritz da Cat, Ice One and Malaisa. Stateside, later that year, he produced and co-wrote "Forever and a Day" by Mystic off her Grammy-nominated debut album Cuts For Luck and Scars for Freedom (Interscope). The Source magazine called it "the jewel of the collection with spine-tingling piano keys and thunderous drums." Next, he co-wrote and produced "Ignite" and "Nice With It" with white girl rap group Northern State off their Columbia Records debut All City, named a Top 50 Album of 2004 by Rolling Stone. Currently, he's in the studio at work on his solo debut.
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Thanks to a slew of deals he recently completed with MTV/Viacom, you can now hear hundreds of Manifest beats in the hit TV shows Pimp My Ride (MTV), America's Next Top Model (UPN), The Real World (MTV), Making The Band (MTV), The Challenge (MTV), Wimbledon (NBC Sports), The US Open (NBC Sports), In The Mix (PBS), and Exposed (MTV). He continues to expand his presence on TV by building the music publishing arm of Manifest Media with other songwriters and composers, recently finishing CDs with Time2Fly, an R&B production team out of Philly, and Charley Hustle, a Hip-Hop producer from New York.
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A contributing author to the anthology Are Italians White? (Routledge 2003), Vesuvio participated in speaking engagements at NYU, Rutgers University, Middlebury College, Hofstra University, Montclair State, Jersey City Museum, and Barnes & Noble. Since then, his chapter, entitled "The Front Lines: Hip-Hop, Life and The Death of Racism," has become required reading in courses taught at Smith College, University of Arizona, Middlebury College, Rutgers University, and York University in Canada. Endorsed by such luminaries as Spike Lee, who wrote "I applaud this insightful scrutiny," the book has since been translated into Italian (Gli Italiani Sono Bianchi? Il Saggiatore Press 2006).
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Also, now available on his Manifest Media label is his entire catalog with The Anonymous on sale at
